


The Morning After

by Anythingtoasted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fic, M/M, Men of Letters Headquarters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morning-after fic for Plantainleaf ♥</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After

The kitchen seems strangely empty as he enters it; bigger somehow, like the space has widened between last night and the morning after; like, in his absence, it has grown.

It’s  _not_ empty though, which makes it weirder; Cas is awake, wandering around the kitchen like he’s concussed, blinking slowly and opening drawers and cabinets seemingly at random, peering into them, then doing nothing, then pushing them shut. When Dean enters, he turns; they make eye contact, and then Cas looks away and continues poking through the kitchen, looking for god knows what.

Dean doesn’t know what to do here, what the protocol is; usually he (or they) are long gone by now, but the bunker is home to both of them, it is just as much Cas’ as it is Dean’s, or Sam’s, even if he  _doesn’t_ know where everything in the kitchen is kept. He can’t kick him out; can’t leave himself (not permanently, anyway). All his usual options are either stupid or impossible, and so instead he is here; vaguely hungry, vaguely nauseous, watching Castiel as he searches fruitlessly for  _something._

“You need some help?” he says quietly, and Castiel turns as if Dean had fired a gun into the silence.

“I’m – Do you know where the coffee mugs are?”

“Under the sink.” He answers, carefully, and Castiel turns to do so, muttering vaguely under his breath, as if Dean is no longer there. He takes his own designated mug – slate grey – from the cabinet under the sink and fills it with  water from the tap above, hands deft with practise. Dean walks slowly over to one side of the counter, a good few feet away, and watches him as he drinks, long, desperate glugs of water, a thread of it dribbling from the side of the mug and down his chin. He lowers the mug; wipes it away; his eyes finally, finally settle on Dean.

“Are we gonna talk about it?” He blurts, and this is  _not_ a conversation he’s used to having. Not by  _any_ stretch of the imagination.

Castiel regards him coolly over the edge of the mug. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“Do  _you_  want to?” he tries, and Castiel shrugs noncommittally, as if he really  _doesn’t_ care, either way. Dean swallows, feels his throat undulate, his feet cold, bare, on the kitchen tile. “I think we should talk about it.”

“What do you want me to say?” Castiel asks him, words rolling so, so easy out of his mouth, when the whole of Dean’s body burns on the inside. His throat is dry; he feels a seething jealousy for Castiel’s mug of water, but can’t get close enough to the sink, because they might, god forbid,  _touch._

Touch  _again_.

He’d woken that morning when Castiel crawled out from beside him, out of bed, and cracked one eye open to watch him putting his clothes back on. The night was a blur, though neither of them had been drinking; on one hand he was glad of it; there was no blaming this on drunkenness, no blaming it on outside influence.

No spells, no curses; just them, and the couch, and a rerun of  _Wrath of Khan,_ and Dean getting strangely talkative in the early hours of the morning _._

Then Cas in his lap, and Cas’ hands in his hair, and Cas’ mouth on his own, on his jaw, on his neck. Cas’ fingers dipping below the edge of his waistband, Cas’ feet on the living room floor as he stood.

They’d followed one another like it was inevitable, and at the time, so  _hungry,_ Dean had supposed that it was; a long time coming, conclusion well foregone.

He remembers it now, when Castiel’s eyes lower to look into his own mug; his posture shifts, shoulders dropping, mouth twisted carefully down.

Dean’s turn to shrug. He doesn’t know, exactly.  _That was nice,_ maybe?  _We should never do this again?_ He doesn’t know if what they’ve done is sensible, if he’s about to lose the best, oldest friend he’s ever had, or gain something entirely different. He doesn’t know if somehow this was one-sided; if Castiel was just doing what he wanted, like he always (usually) does.

He remembers the way Castiel breathed his name in his ear, and thinks that it can’t be – no one makes that  _noise_ without prompting behind it, without years of  _something_ from under his skin finally coming out -but he’s misread things before, never knows where he stands. Never quite understands what has passed between them, though damn it, he _tries._

“Regrets?” he hears from across the kitchen, tentative, and Castiel looks right at him as he says it, and his hand is tight around the mug. His expression is carefully blank, but Dean knows that face, has seen it a number of times.

“No. I don’t think so.” he says, truthfully, and flinches when Castiel puts his cup down, by the sink. “You?”

“No.” The same eye contact, same intensity, and Dean is floored by that, all of that, focused on  _him._ The surety in Castiel’s words always,  _always_ scares him.

It’s strange now, to look at those hands, and think  _those hands have been on me._ Strange to remember how impenetrable, how alien, Castiel once seemed to him, not so long ago; and now he has had him naked in his arms, has had his breath against his neck, his body in his bed.

Strange, but not insufferable, not worrying. Not as scary as he’d thought it would be.

“Had it coming for a while, huh.” Dean finds himself saying, speaking as honestly as he can muster, and he is rewarded with the gentle huff of Castiel’s laughter, bouncing off the sink.

“I thought so.” Castiel, the mug left behind, is trailing his hand carefully along the edge of the counter, and Dean remembers that hand between his legs, the fingers of that hand inside him, the things they’d  _said,_ stupid and breathless and high on adrenaline. Dumb as fuck, the two of them,  _always,_ when it came to each other; and maybe this is dumb, too, not to just walk away; not to just say ‘forget it’, pack up, move on. Stay friends.

There’s a lot of things still to ask him, still to deal with; a lot of things Dean isn’t sure he wants, isn’t sure he can have, if he takes all this in stride.

 But he swallows his pride. He smiles, as much as he can muster, and crosses the room to cover Castiel’s sweeping hand with his own, palm pressed to his knuckles, Castiel’s fingers flat on the countertop.

“So we’re okay?”

Castiel looks at their hands, and a smile plays around his mouth, half-amused. He turns, to meet Dean’s eyes again, and for once Dean makes himself meet them. “Better.” Castiel mutters, and hovers close.

He does not kiss him; he lets Dean close the gap on his own.


End file.
